Hilcorp applies for flowline at Blossom

Newest pad at Ninilchik unit will be connected to GO pad, where natural gas will be separated, sent on to Kenai Kachemak Pipeline

Kristen Nelson

Petroleum News

Hilcorp Alaska has applied to install two pipelines between Blossom pad and the Grassim Oskolkoff pad at the Ninilchik unit on the Kenai Peninsula.

The Alaska Department of Natural Resources’ Division of Oil and Gas said the Blossom pad is north of Ninilchik at approximately milepost 124 of the Sterling Highway. Hilcorp previously received the division’s permission to construct the Blossom pad and drill up to two exploration gas wells.

Hilcorp submitted a plan of operations to install production equipment along with associated flowlines and power/communication lines in order to begin natural gas production from the newly constructed Blossom pad, which lies outside the Ninilchik unit boundaries, but targets natural gas within the unit.

The company said there will be two 6-inch-diameter flex-steel gas flowlines, bundled with electrical/instrumentation and fiber optic communication cables, with one flowline used to transport gas from the Blossom No. 1 well and the second allowing for future gas production from a potential second gas well, allowing each well to operate at separate pressures.

Hilcorp received a drilling permit for the Blossom No. 1 from the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission March 31. The target is Beluga/Tyonek gas.

Hilcorp said natural gas and produced fluids from Blossom pad wells will undergo initial separation at Blossom pad, with gas and produced water conveyed via subgrade facility piping from each well to a heater/separator at the southeast corner of the pad. Produced water will be sent to a 200-barrel tank located within secondary containment on the pad; gas will be sent via buried flowline to GO pad for further treatment, if needed.

At GO pad, treated gas will be separated and further conveyed via the Kenai Kachemak Pipeline.

Flowline construction is scheduled to begin as soon as drilling is completed this July, with flowline and trench construction expected to take some three weeks to complete. The 4,700-foot flowlines will be on private and Kenai Peninsula Borough owned surface lands.

Blossom pad will not be a manned facility, but will be monitored by personnel staged out of the Ninilchik unit Susan Dionne pad.

Blossom pad construction was authorized by the division in December 2014. The Ninilchik unit, most of which lies offshore, runs along the coast of the Kenai Peninsula from Clam Gulch in the north to Ninilchik in the south. Blossom is one of eight pads in the unit. The GO pad, south of Blossom, is the nearest pad in the unit.

The division is accepting comments through 4:30 p.m. June 29.